Blog Posts

The silver lining playbook

2/4/2019

Gloomy clouds surround the MCG. With the Bulldogs five goals down at three-quarter time, the Land of Hope and Maybes has receded below the horizon.

There’s a sense of deflation, anti-climax. The Dogs have squandered this one after a dominant first half.

Sure, it’s only Round Two, But the way in which we were unable to capitalize on the countless opportunities we'd worked so hard to create - and the way our team retreated into their shell when the Hawks and their ultra-professional premiership veterans put their foot on the accelerator – well, we saw that playbook far too often during a painful 2018 season.

Momentum and belief and reward for effort are everything in footy. Getting this early reminder that we’re still a way off the pace will sap our self-belief, plant those seeds of doubts in our minds, crush our spirits.

But enough of us. It could affect our players too.

My thoughts turn, half-heartedly, to possible themes to explain this match — this looming defeat — in this week’s blog. Nothing very original springs to mind. Perhaps I’ll have to resort to cut-and-pasting from previous seasons, and hope my loyal band of readers are too dejected to notice or care.

It's well-worn, but I could always trot out a few observations on the tribal and cultural differences between the ‘Shoppers from Forges’ and the ‘Shoppers from Georges’. There’ll inevitably be a line or two about the leafy eastern suburbs brigade vs the downtrodden true believers from the west — though after the glut of Hawthorn premierships in recent times, their fans are just as likely to hail from Caroline Springs, St Albans, or even - perish the thought - the Tragician’s hometown of Deer Park. I could always make a cheap shot about Jeff Kennett, some sneers about pimply private school boys, and if things get desperate, I’ll just mock those horrid colours.

Maybe I can also recycle some reflections on the mirage of footy success, the folly of assuming footy fortunes move forward in linear, predictable steps. When we beat the Hawks on this very ground in the 2016 finals, it was hailed as a changing of the guard. The Three-peaters were on the slide, the hungry and youthful Bulldogs were the team of the future, all encapsulated in the iconic moment when The Bont outbodied Luke Hodge.

The reality is we haven’t beaten the Hawks since. And that annoyingly consistent club, which SHOULD have been bloated and self-satisfied with the indecent number of flags they’ve accumulated, again achieved top four status after just one year out of contention. While the Bulldogs…

I guess I’ll try and extract some comic mileage about the moments when ‘Celeb’ Daniel found himself one-out against taller Hawthorn players (in other words every single one of them). I'll remind everyone of our motto since 2015: ‘In Bevo We Trust’, and try to sound wise and knowledgeable about how this scenario was simply the consequence of the complexities of team defence.

But right now, wincing at the embarrassing memory, I’m not laughing at all.

I know I will struggle to get the right balance between pessimism and optimism. I'll need to focus on the second quarter, and not lament too much that those efforts yielded just a fragile four point lead. Limp references to this being a learning experience will get thrown into the mix, and then I’ll probably finish off with some stats to end on a rousing or at least not-too-depressing note, for facts don’t lie (do they?). After all the Hawks had eleven players who’ve played more than 150 games, while we had just one, Matthew Suckling (and after all he played a lot of those for the Hawks anyway, which somehow discounts things in the Tragician mindset).

The siren sounds, interrupting my musings; the fourth quarter is about to get underway. The five-goal margin is, surely, insurmountable considering the Dogs have struggled to score the seven they've kicked so far. Last year’s template suggests that with so many young players, we might not just lose, but capitulate. So often in 2018 gallant efforts came to nought. The dam would break, and we'd ended up losing by a hefty margin.

And yet. And yet…

‘We’re still in this, Dogs!’ I call out. Whether I actually believe my own words is not entirely clear.

But something makes me feel we’ll have another crack at the Hawks. Even when the Hawks immediately reply to the first goal that dents their comfortable margin, I see those intangible signs. The Dogs, mysteriously, improbably, are not done.

Just as feeble efforts can run like a contagion throughout a team, heroic ones become infectious, inspire others to greater deeds.

The Hawks’ lead unravels quicker than we could ever have hoped.

We’re winning the one-on-ones. Every time I blink, we’re launched another, and surprisingly effective, forward attack.

We’re running hard, swarming. We are teeming …and teaming...towards victory.

The goals rain down, with the technicolour intensity of a dream. We’ve no sooner taken our seats after applauding one, than we’re leaping up again to celebrate another.

Why should this be a surprise, I think, with the elastic mindset of the veteran supporter? After all... footy world and doubters (which had included The Tragician only minutes earlier)... WE have OUR special group of premiership heroes, too.

Of course, there are much fewer of them out there than we would ever have thought back on That Glorious Day… just ten in fact. But each of them does something important and influential as we storm the Hawks’ castle. Each of them will show that his will, his inner fire, still burns. Each will draw upon memories of all that it takes to win, that are more dramatic, more stirring, than this round two clash. Our leaders, Wood and Bont. The precocious young men of 2016, who won a flag before they’d even played 20 games, Dunkley, McLean and Cordy. The guy with the golden boot whose best we'd forgotten all about, Tory Dickson. The runners with huge aerobic tanks and even bigger hearts, Lachie Hunter and Jackson Macrae. ‘Celeb’ Daniel, the improbable defender whose clean skills and immaculate vision outweigh his, er, lack of immense height.

And most importantly, Tom Liberatore, our mercurial player who is somehow simultaneously the anti-footballer and the purest of footballers.

We didn’t really know Libba The Second was our heartbeat, but as he snaps a goal to put us - amazingly - two goals up, and we see the raw emotion when his team-mates mob him, we learn it anew.

Even the umpires are on the Barnstorming Bulldogs’ Bandwagon, but as I’ve frequently made clear in this blog, they are an under-appreciated, admirable bunch of individuals, doing a difficult job in trying circumstances, always well-placed to make the right call even if we occasionally see it a tad differently from 100s of metres away, and I will have no truck with ridiculous conspiracy theories about their impact on the game.

(And, let’s face it, Sicily is so bloody annoying).

The final siren brings manic laughter. It's like when you’ve been on the Big Dipper or hurtled down a water slide. There aren’t words to capture the craziness of those chaotic 23 minutes, the amazing escape Our Boys pulled off.

It’s the first time EVER an Alastair Clarkson-coached team has conceded a lead greater than 22 points in the last quarter. A Hawthorn supporter sitting near us graciously shakes our hands after the game, acknowledging us as the better team and deserving of our win. (He certainly doesn’t LOOK like a snooty, leafy-eastern-suburbs-residing, private school-boy type, though the Tragician, even while appreciating his gesture, won't entirely rule this out as a possibility). We try and curb our joyous celebrations until after he leaves our aisle.

There's no Forges or even Georges any more, but still, it's mainly Bulldogs’ scarves flying merrily from windows of cars heading back towards the west. Because those Men of Mayhem, so rarely sighted over the past two years as injuries, doubts, and team upheavals have taken their toll, have roared back into town like a gang of out of control Hells' Angels. They upended all those possible themes of this week’s blog. Somehow I don’t think any one will care about that very much at all.

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The land of hope and maybes

25/3/2019

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It's deep into the last quarter, and the Dogs, who have been in front almost all night, are in danger of surrendering their well-deserved lead. Our Boys have surprised and delighted us with a splendid display of hard running, unveiled an unexpected marking target in the forward-line, and shown a renewal of the camaraderie and team spirit which was so important in…well, you know when.

Now, though, on this humid evening, with the match slipping from our grasp, the atmosphere is suffocating. Lungs are bursting; legs are heavy. There’s not one ounce of energy to draw upon to avert a looming catastrophe.

I always knew my lack of a solid pre-season would come back to haunt me.

I pride myself, you see, on maintaining an aloof distance from what goes on in my club, in fact the AFL world in general, once the footy season ends. It protects me from the grubby machinations of trade week. And it minimizes the pain of seeing beloved players choosing, or being shunted towards, other clubs.

But it also saves me from embarrassingly over-the-top post-season declarations, chief among them being: ‘There is absolutely no way I will EVER cheer for that revolting bleach blonde show-pony Jason Akermanis!!!!’ , ‘Let’s hope we never see that thug/borderline criminal Barry Hall in our colours!!!!’ and: ‘Since Daniel Cross was forcibly traded I will NEVER (ever, EVER) love another player wearing number four again!!!!’ (All pronouncements came complete with Donald Trump-style excessive exclamation marks!!!!!!)

But in the week before Round One, as I completed the first challenge of the season (locating my ‘Bulldog for Life’ membership ticket), a few snippets of information did break through my defences.

Apparently, we were going to wear a jumper so ghastly that even Easton Wood looks terrible in it.

And a rash of lairy haircuts that would have drawn a stern rebuke from Matthew ‘Keith’ Boyd has broken out among younger members of the team.

I finally begin to look at the sports pages of the papers again. The pundits are firm in their conviction that we can’t play finals; many think we will be a bottom four team. Not having seen a single moment of our pre-season matches, I have no idea whether this is a well-founded prediction.

But that little niggle of annoyance at these assessments (the nerve of them!) is the first sign that the real stuff is about to get underway.

We arrive at the match; everyone's wearing shorts and thongs instead of the multiple layers that soon will be needed for the winter gloom, or our first match in Ballarat, whichever comes first. My nieces and nephews now tower over their aunties, the petite Libba Sisters. In the row in front of us sits a family where we have watched a woman throughout her pregnancy, appearing the next year with a little boy; we are pleased to see that now, between seasons, a new baby girl has joined their clan. She is enthralled rather than distressed at the peculiar behaviour around her. She claps her little hands when we clap, intrigued and alert at our antics, the flashing lights, the roar of the crowd.

My lack of a pre-season hit-out is soon on display. I’m sluggish in identifying some of our new-look players, especially in those cartoonish jumpers. I mean, Matthew Suckling has hair now, but Tory Dickson does not. I was so out of touch, I even mistook Tory for Nathan Eagleton, and that was even before he missed those shots on goal. And since when did Toby McLean stop looking frail and waif-like, and begin to sport a bushy beard?

Because I had no opinion or expectation of whether our team would prefer well or poorly, I observe the match initially with relaxed detachment. I regard it as a leisurely practice match, where I’m not all that invested in the result, just pleased to see promising signs, not fixated with the concept of winning or losing. I’m even in danger of expressing appreciation and good sportsmanship when a Swans player pulls down a spectacular mark, though I hastily pull myself together. I make a foolish comment that Jackson Macrae has been quiet, moments before the stats come up on the screen, showing he has, of course, accumulated more possessions than any other player on the ground. I don't beat myself up about these errors though. I'm just easing my way back into the tempo of a new season, I tell myself, an experienced pro, pacing myself into the 2019 year.

It all changes, of course, in the last quarter, when the Swans click ominously into gear. Buddy Franklin begins to wreak the havoc that only he can; their forward line is suddenly seething with possibilities. Our lead is cut back; it was never a reflection of our actual dominance. There’s no place for fake nonchalance now as I see the possibility, the only too real possibility, that Round One will end with the most soul-destroying sort of loss, the kind that saps morale and seeps into the psyche. The Loss When You Think You've Got The Game Won.

Now it all comes tumbling back to me, the sheer torture, the agony of the helpless fan, spectators who can do nothing to achieve what we most want. It doesn’t matter how much we do the Bulldog chant and stamp our feet — first-gamer Bailey Smith, who has probably never played in front of more than a few hundred fans, will not have the experience and nous to realise that this is not the time to play on. Our desperate attempts from the comfort of our seats (actually we’re standing most of the time by now) to urge Our Boys to run harder, to will them to make one more effort, to pray that they will make the right decisions whenever the ball comes hurtling into a suddenly wide-open Swans forward line: none of these matter. None of these can influence the result.

But, unlike the under-done Bulldog Tragician, Our Boys have been training, preparing, planning and working for moments like these. Their intensity rises; they find that intangible something, to break through the pain, the fatigue. I see, with relief, those indomitable runners, Hunter and Macrae, present at each sapping contest, and the one after that. With four minutes to go and the Dogs weathering furious attack after furious attack, there’s a crunching contest in the middle of the ground; new chum Sam Lloyd lays a wonderful tackle. In the half-second that follows, I realise two things simultaneously; one, that our forward line is now completely empty; and two, that The Bont, once the ball was won, has begun sprinting back into its open spaces. His fellow premiership ‘veteran’ Toby McLean launches the footy towards Our Golden Boy. It’s a beautifully weighted kick, but it still takes a champion – that guy who took Daniel Cross’s place in my heart - to judge the spinning ball in flight, mark it cleanly at full stretch, keep his feet, and make certain the goal.

Maybe last year Bont wouldn’t have had the fitness to make that last, lung-bursting run. Maybe last year he wouldn’t have had the confidence in our ability to win that contest, enabling him to immediately charge forward; to resolve to win the match not merely save it. Maybe 2019 will be one of those magical, unexpectedly joyful years, where momentum builds, injuries are kind to us, and faith, not self-doubt, grows steadily week on week. Libba The Second is back, after all, pesky and feisty and combative. Easton Wood played his best game for ages (and didn't look too shabby in that stupid jumper either). And what about 19-year-old Aaron Naughton, clunking marks with the composure of a young Chris Grant, and still running back to help out our besieged backline in the hectic final minutes, and ‘Celeb’ Daniel’s prolific and creative role in defence, and…...

I’m back, I realise, with a lurch of happiness and fear, in that land of hopes and maybes. A land we wouldn't even have glimpsed, if just those last five minutes of a two-hour contest had played out any differently.

The crowd files out, beaming faces, happy chatter, people milling around to cheer Our Boys down the race. We don't want to be poker-faced and sensible, saying: 'It's only round one', mouthing platitudes of 'not getting ahead of ourselves', or, even worse, focusing on how we nearly blew it. Not after the past two dreary years. We're tired and elated and relieved and hopeful, but mainly, I think as I study the faces in the crowd, elated.

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Mad Monday

12/11/2018

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The players have their rituals to mark the passing of the year that was: strange dress ups and mysterious in-jokes. But for the fans there is no ‘Mad Monday’, no clear delineation to mark the passing of an ultimately unsuccessful year, and definitely no opportunity to declare ourselves a bit ‘stale’ and request a trade to another club where our particular barracking talents are more in demand. (Or indeed for the club to force the issue, crafting a tactful and diplomatic message thanking us for our efforts, now no longer required, and wishing us well in our new careers as ambassadors for GWS).

Instead, we kind of…’skulk’ is the word I’m looking for…throughout the tedious off-season. Snippets of news about delistings and defections filter through: sometimes we’ve become resigned to their inevitability months earlier. We can only wait with a mix of anxiety and boredom, hoping that the right - the wise - decisions will be made.

We also feel relief when we survive an off-season with that ominous combination of words: ‘naked’ … ‘vomiting in the street’ … and ‘Bulldogs’ …referring to a rugby team in the uncivilized northern states.

And then we – I mean I - drift back into our post-season twilight zone, only emerging to be outraged that Essendon have got a new blockbuster match (Good Friday), and channelling that outrage into following a twitter account, which lifts my spirits by posting a daily tally of the number of days since Essendon won a final (well over 5000 now).

For those fascinated by arcane systems of picks and compensation points, an abomination known as Trade Radio exists. Some fans are enthralled by every machination, sub-plot and possible trade scenario; many have been analyzing and calculating the possibilities since well before the season ended.

The Bulldog Tragician, with a mix of hypocrisy and stubborn denial of reality, somehow wishes for two simultaneous yet conflicting outcomes: that NONE of the 2016 premiership heroes will ever play elsewhere, while wanting bold steps to be taken, so that success, and the euphoria of 2016, comes again – speedily too. My mindset is like Woody Allen’s famous saying: ‘I’m not all that scared of death – I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’

Maybe for the seasoned pros, such as the fans of clubs wearing brown and gold, all the horse trading comes naturally. Getting rid of beloved premiership heroes - well, it's just the cost of doing business, a profit and loss transaction (you just know they have a disproportionate number of accountants among their boringly smug ranks). We’re a little – okay, a lot – less skilled in pragmatism. We’re still able to be brought to tears by some snippet of 2016 dreaming; the speedy fragmentation of the premiership team never featured in that fairytale script.

We’ve tried, of course, to grow thicker skins. Last year we made epic efforts to hastily recast Jake the Lovable Lair into Jake the Arch-Villain. Fortunately his hairstyle choices, mysteriously bad tattoos and the sheer fact of his appearance in the dreaded red and black eased the breakup pain.

But at the end of the 2018 season, the earthquake tremors became a tsunami. Premiership heroes indeed fell like skittles! (I admit, I become rusty with my choice of metaphors throughout the dreary off-season).

There were brittle, hollow jokes about Luke Dahlhaus being no longer ‘motovated’ as he left for more money (in truth our club was far from determined to keep him), squabbled with Bob (BOB!!) Murphy on social media, and posed in the Geelong hoops; yet our attempts at indifference struck a feeble note.

There was jittery waiting about the re-signing (that all important hyphen) of Mitch Wallis and Tom Liberatore. Bewilderment that it took so long.

It's not all one-way traffic of course; there are new recruits in our colours. We tried to latch onto their words of praise and admiration about their new home. Naturally, they are energized, enthusiastic, love the ‘vibe’ of their new workplace, are in awe of the wise and super-approachable coaching staff, and have already shared copious amounts of coffee with their welcoming, friendly, lovable new team-mates. We ignored, of course, the fact that our own former players were making identical statements - there'd obviously a template for them - which their new clubs were rolling out to inspire feverish optimism among their own fans.

As we heard the news of Jordan Roughead seeking ‘new opportunities’ elsewhere, we tried to shut out those abiding images of his stirring efforts in the 2016 finals series – in Perth, when he quelled our nerves with a strong grab, wheeled around and kicked a goal in the run, or THAT grand final mark which announced that whatever malign fate or AFL conspiracy hovered over us, our destiny was still in our – well, his – hands. It’s even harder, for the romantics in us, to shut out the touching memory of him as a quality, beautiful human being as well, bringing along to the Brownlow glitz his ‘date’, a young guy that Jordan mentored as part of his work with the charity Ladder.

Meanwhile the one-man band that put on the "Great Wall of Biggs Cameo" in the last quarter of the grand final has retired in a way as enigmatic and perplexing as the fact that it was this unlikely, off-beat player who found reserves of courage and determination that you might have expected from Daniel Cross, in the most intense and enthralling moments of the Bulldogs’ last 60 years. We didn’t cheer Shane Biggs off the ground one last time; he did not appear in a Grand Final motorcade, did not record a message for the fans on the club website. He just flashed briefly through our lives, and our club’s history.

Sometimes it feels like we the fans are the true and only keepers of these stories. Like mothers we hold close onto those memories while they leave us, going on to build new lives and new stories. But they hold memories that we can’t fathom too. Of the moments that they gather in the race before they emerge to face the menacing roar of an interstate crowd. Of how it feels to train in 40 degree heat while we the fans turn on the tennis and cricket. Of the quiet struggles of a team-mate, his desolation in the hard times and injuries; they alone know what he might be overcoming just to be out there each week. Of how it felt to run out onto the MCG, into the wave of emotion, on October 1 2016.

In time, they will gather for milestone reunions, reconnecting about these things only they can know. I try and imagine a paunchy Marcus Bontempelli and a balding ‘JJ’ sharing a beer and reminiscing about that thrilling moment they broke the game open in the 2016 preliminary final.

I envisage Dale and Riley Morris – the first father-son combination to take the field simultaneously (what, you thought Dale would retire?) – re-enacting the elder Morris’s famed tackle on Buddy Franklin, to the raucous and appreciative shouts of the group.

Towards the end of festivities, perhaps current day captain Jarvis Murphy will drop in and lead the now slightly maudlin men of 2016 out onto Barkly Street, where they will pose together – even Jake the Former Lair - in front of a statue of Bevo Our Saviour giving Bob his medal.

I sigh and shake my head, flooded with nostalgia. This is really no way to visualize a new future. I should be looking forward, not wallowing in the past; it's time, surely, to move on, to begin crafting daydreams about heroic moments in the years ahead. Perhaps that new recruit, some bloke we got from Hawthorn (his name will come to me in a moment) will run down some Essendon player I don’t like (could be any of them) in an epic final, and the ball spills free to, um, Little Red Richards, who snaps the winning goal in the 2019 Grand Final?

‘I’m not as … excited…about footy any more,’ I complained recently to Libba Sister Two.

She rolled her eyes. ‘You say that every year,’ she reminded me.

She could be right, I reflected, as I skulked around, checking the name of that new recruit from Hawthorn on the Bulldogs' website, and pressing ‘like’ on the number "5182" of the Days Since Essendon Won a Final twitter account.

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Qualitative sheen

15/8/2018

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It's half time at Docklands. The Dogs are 28 points down. It's a disappointing outcome, which doesn't reflect our effort, the commitment of our players, or our overall domination in most measures.

It's unfair, but that's the Bulldogs' 2018 season for you.

To add to the ever bulging injury list, Zaine Cordy is now off the field and in the back of an ambulance, with a broken forehead, which I didn't even know was a thing. We've valiantly driven the ball into our forward line time and time again - unfortunately more LIKE a Valiant than a smooth-running Mercedes - but unless we're trialling a new game plan called Kick and Hope, the results have, er, left quite a bit to be desired.

Looking back at the first half, I develop a theory that, in some sort of inversion of the Talia-gate scandal where our game plan was pinched by the Crows, there's been Shinboner infiltration of our club. By methods unclear, a Brad Scott-instructed mole has silently and stealthily breached the coaching inner circle, and each Bulldogs' player has been instructed to kick it to Majak Daw at every opportunity.

For all our bravery, the spirited efforts, the multiple but fruitless forward entries, we've been let down by a lack of what Bevo Our Saviour calls 'qualitative sheen.' Hard-fought territory would be gained, players would be running hard, and then we'd unleash an ugly high floating kick to the tallest player on the ground Majak Daw, who would mark it just like The Chief in One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

It's unlikely we can recover the five-goal deficit. North have plenty to play for, a spot in the finals up for grabs. And our third quarters have been abysmal. Okay, we broke that pattern with a sizzling, attacking third quarter against the Saints in last week's match, but surely that was more of a reflection of their forlorn season than an indicator that our best, premiership-winning footy had finally returned.

In last week's rather unexpected blitz, one man more than most displayed qualitative sheen aplenty. I may have mentioned him once or twice on these pages - a player wearing number four, a bloke called Marcus Bontempelli. The Bont has had a curious season, patchy in form by his stellar standards, looking sometimes lame and unfit, perhaps even burdened by the leadership that has been thrust his way prematurely by the avalanche of injuries. And that was how it had seemed early in the game against the Saints, where his head was often bowed, his steps slow and uncertain, his instinct for footy dimmed. But for champions, the tide can turn quickly. He caused sudden mayhem with his raking left foot, his vision for the goals reminding us that if he wasn't a pretty handy midfielder, he'd be a nightmare matchup as a permanent forward.

We'd only managed four goals in the first half against North, but two of them were from the Bont, those elegant entries into the huff and puff of the game that are his trademark. He looks, this afternoon, to be running more freely. And maybe with the recent slow clawing back of the injury carnage - with seasoned bodies like those of Dale Morris, Tory Dickson, Jackson Trengove and Jordan Roughead finally stringing some games together - there is less of a weight on the shoulders of the Bont, the guy who is still - STILL!!!!- eligible for the Under 22 squad.

Who knows what happened during the half-time break - maybe someone finally cottoned onto the North subterfuge and confiscated the 'Kick it to Majak Daw' game plan - but suddenly the Dogs went berserk. The team that has battled this season to painfully construct even one goal began piling them on.

It was exhilarating. It was unexpected. It seemed like a physical breaking of the shackles that had bound us this year, where footy became a chore for players and fans alike.

For the first time since records were kept, three players from the one team racked up more than 40 possessions: Lachie Hunter, whose relentless and selfless running has been one of the few highlights of 2018; 'Celeb' Daniel, motoring smoothly out of the backline with his deft kicks; and predictably, Jackson Macrae, whose competitive nature has never flagged in even the most miserable of our dreary performances.

And of course there was The Bont. He didn't manage over 40 possessions but let's face it, Bont at his best needs much fewer than that to scythe through an opposition and turn a game on its head. His are creative, seeing possibilities others don't; they open up the game, they lead to goals.

For some reason he has always performed brilliantly against North, which may reflect why the Shinboners' squad of Fake Tough Guys - including their latest recruit in more ways than one, Shaun Higgins - has always been determined to try and physically target Our Golden Boy up, and at the same time the reason why those efforts will always fail.

Meanwhile Dale Morris, 35-years-old and with a battered and beaten up body, played a game that was like a time capsule of his career. Others may dream, in their milestone matches, of being the centre of attention, doing the showy, the spectacular: kicking the winning goal, flying for a specky. Even one of our most dour defenders, Matthew Croft (it's his late-arriving fist that you see trying to spoil Wayne Carey time and again in the 90s) played his last game in the forward line where he managed five goals and lairised with an inside-out banana kick. Dale's fantasies of how his milestone game might play out, you imagine, were of a different ilk. They would have involved moments like the third quarter when he made that characteristic Dale lunge on the goal line to thwart a North goal; or when, as only Dale can, he beat two North players half his age in the last quarter to win a critical contest. And that's not even mentioning the multiple, unobtrusive, sacrificial acts that we have seen in every single one of Dale's 250 matches: the support for a team-mate, the willingness to offer his body as a battering ram, the ability to extract the energy for one last determined punch of the ball, one last super-human tackle.

The Dogs registered an unexpected win, one that makes you dream again of what could be possible sooner rather than later, even though it's only our seventh win of the season (for the never magnanimous Bulldog Tragician, solace is taken by the fact that two of those wins contributed to the wrecking of the finals chances of teams coached by the petulant Scott brothers, while another was against the Bombres).

When the siren sounded, Dale was instantly mobbed - not by his premiership team-mates, but by the young defenders who've been privileged to play alongside him, who've seen at close quarters the courage and commitment of one of our all-time greats. The others soon followed. Their love and admiration for Dale had surely helped our team over the line.

Dale's 250th match had a distinct lack of qualitative sheen, but it was, said The Age, 'brutal and important.'

It was, said Bevo Our Saviour, 'a pretty good eight-possession game.'

The 'old boy', said The Bont irreverently, 'is simply inspiring.'

We all stayed in our seats to applaud him, to give thanks. The players formed their guard of honour and we waited to see who would hoist Dale on their shoulders and carry him off the ground. Unexpectedly I felt a lump in my throat when I realised one of them was Roughy, the heart and soul player who grew up barracking for the Dogs, who risked his sight to play in our premiership win, who as one of our more senior players had played alongside Dale in lean years as well as good. The man who some say will part ways with our club at the end of the year. The other is our captain The Bont, his smile broad, his spirit light. Bont later shared a photo of the moment he and Roughy carried off the warrior on Instagram, with two perfect words: 'Precious cargo.'

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See the barrackers a-shouting

31/7/2018

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The temperature gauge on my car is showing four degrees, but that doesn't allow for a wind-chill factor of reportedly minus five.

I’m driving to our match at Ballarat from Lorne: a two-hour trip. For reasons deeply obscure even to me, I'm finishing off a pleasant beachside weekend by travelling to this game where the forecast (weather-wise) has been for icy rain, bone-chilling winds interrupted by hailstorms, while the forecast (footy-wise) is for another drubbing for our injury-stricken team.

Unsure of the route, I place my trust in the GPS. (This is essential as my appalling sense of direction is legendary; I once ended up in Port Melbourne while walking back to my car, parked in Crown Casino, after a match at Docklands).

There are no convoys of Bulldogs fans to follow. Within five minutes of leaving Lorne the roads are empty and bleak. I’m the only traveller, to football or elsewhere, for tens of kilometres at a time.

There are majestic windfarms, horses wearing coats, and long stretches of Australian nothing-ness. I lose radio reception but actually I’m not sorry that I am unable to listen to anything footy-related. The previous day when I’d travelled to Lorne, I’d tuned in, listening to a discussion about the AFL’s ham-fisted attempts to trial the rules in live games featuring teams whose season has turned hopeless and meaningless (that would be the Bulldogs). Then I heard a conversation about whether it was okay for Gold Coast Sun player and co-captain Tom Lynch to be openly meeting with rival clubs while the season is still playing out. Jimmy Bartel mounted a heated defence of this. ‘The players are realistic about what’s going on; they understand,’ he said.

In neither of these discussions did I hear anyone voice concerns about what the fans might think. How are we meant to turn up to, and care about, games that the AFL has deemed so worthless that they will contemplate the introduction of rule trials more befitting of the pre-season competition? Why should fans stay loyal and blindly committed, when even the thinnest of veneers about ‘playing for the jumper’ and ‘bleeding for the club’ are peeled aside?

So it's a relief to tune out from inane AFL in-talk. I switch on music instead. The shuffle selection, after all, usually somehow synchronises with the Tragician psyche, and the first song which comes on is yet another example:

What can you do when your dreams come true
And it's not quite like you planned?

It’s After the thrill is gone, a song from The Eagles – the ‘70s rock band, that is, not that team from Western Australia. (Though if Josh Kennedy wore bell-bottom embroidered jeans…)

Yes, the premiership thrill is gone, and yet somehow, here I am, clocking up the miles on desolate backroads as the rain lashes the windows. I try and remind myself why it’s important. My reasons are all vaguely illogical and superstitious. I imagine them being torn apart by a supercilious lawyer should I somehow be cross-examined and forced to justify them in the dock.

Sneering lawyer: So let’s get this straight, Ms .. (raises an eyebrow, lays heavy sarcastic emphasis on the word).. Tragician…you believe that because you celebrated a premiership win with the players, you are now duty bound to go to matches where they are certain to lose, and furthermore you are of the opinion this somehow earns you moral superiority when the good times come around again?

Me (faltering voice): it sounds silly when you put it like that. But yes, it's just, um... being there for the bad times as well as the good.

Lawyer: I put it to you that your delusions about the impact of your attendance go further. That, on more than one occasion, you’ve claimed your mere presence has some supernatural connection to the outcomes of matches. (Turns to address the judge). Your Honour, we’d like to tender into evidence a badge with an image of a Mr Marcus Bontempelli. Ms…Tragician..has made the grandiose claim that her wearing of this badge was influential in the securing of a grand final berth for a previously unsuccessful team known as the Western Bulldogs.

Me: I never really said that. It wasn’t just the Bonti badge. (Lawyer raises eyebrow, smirks as he waits for me to finish). There was also a lucky scarf!

I blink, realising that while I feebly endured my imaginary cross-examination, I've missed critical information from the GPS, and now need to execute a hasty U-turn. While getting bogged and stranded in a ditch would provide a splendid metaphor for this journey and indeed the 2018 season, it's a relief to evade this catastrophe and get back on track. I continue to muse about my confused and irrational reasons on why is somehow essential for me to attend at the match. It's a way to show gratitude, appreciation for the joy this club has often brought me, solidarity when everything is going wrong. To show empathy, particularly in the recent news items about Tom Boyd and Clay Smith, for all the terrible costs that the game extracts, physical and mental, for these young men.

And it’s the 100th game of The Bont, the young bloke who sparked hope in the dismal year of 2014, the player who almost every game, even if he’s not in vintage form, does something to cherish. I was there for his first game; I have looked on, in awe, at his talent, his composure, the way his self-belief drove his team-mates towards a flag.

Just this week he announced that he couldn’t see himself playing anywhere else but our club.

‘The way I am, particularly how I feel about the football club that’s not something (free agency) that would ever really cross my mind. I’m so committed to the Western Bulldogs Football Club and how much they’ve been able to do for me and the journey that I’ve been on so far.’

What would Our Golden Boy think, making this stirring commitment to our club, if he knew The Bulldog Tragician was too faint-hearted and fickle to bother to attend his 100th match, just because it’s a little bit, okay extremely, cold?

Lawyer: Ms Tragician, I put it to you that football is a business. I point you to similar emotional statements about love of the club (theatrically produces a Herald-Sun clipping) previously made by a Mr Ryan Griffen, and l now tender images of him in an orange jumper. I contend that players ultimately make decisions based on their financial prospects, not old-fashioned concepts such as those you cling to. Meanwhile, your own club is almost planning to delist or trade players that helped win you that premiership that you keep going on about. What do you have to say to that?

Me: (long pause): Not much, I guess. It's the vibe, like in The Castle. I just feel I have to be there.

I finally arrive at the ground. I park the car and begin wrestling myself into four extra layers of clothing. Before I’ve even taken three steps, a hailstorm begins. I put my second coat over my head and walk, almost sideways, through the driving rain. I feel I must resemble the man in the gloomy post-apocalyptic movie The Road, staggering blindly through a barren and scorched landscape, putting one foot in front of the other, no longer knowing his destination, long past understanding what he will do when he gets there.

Actual footage of the Bulldog Tragician's arrival in Ballarat

Sodden and saturated, I join the 6449 other supporters at the match. About a third of them, I’d say, are Port fans. The weather, or maybe the fact that the Dogs’ season is over, neutralises any tribal feelings of enmity. Queueing to get in, we exchange friendly comments about the Ballarat climate, the timing of the match, the expected dire nature of the spectacle ahead of us.

The Dogs perform as expected. They are trying (yes, very trying at times). Someone has decided music should blare out after we score a goal. I should be irritated but, firstly, it doesn’t happen very often, and secondly, I’m pre-occupied with finding ways to return circulation to my chilblain-infested toes, and wondering what it means that the hand-warmers thoughtfully handed out by our club unfortunately explode when you rub them together.

The players aquaplane at times on the slippery turf. I’m sure the commentary team (one good part of being there is you don’t have to listen to them) have already found multiple occasions to use the term ‘slippery cake of soap.’ I wonder if some of the players revel in the conditions, a throwback to uncomplicated, pure footy days when they played as kids on muddy suburban grounds and success was measured by how many times they touched the greasy ball, while their mums waited patiently in cars with a thermos of Milo.

Or whether they are just wishing, as I secretly do, that this season, this game, this quarter, would end.

As the gloom descends, in more ways than one, I pine for those matches where every kick, mark or tackle had a thrilling urgency, where Our Boys performed extraordinary deeds, where the grandest stadium in the country throbbed with our energy. Instead, among the small ranks of the die-hards, there is a fatalistic acceptance, after a reasonable first half effort, that we will not be able to go the distance. As our efforts begin to wane, and the fatigue created by the heavy conditions takes its toll, there is an absence of anguish, of anger, among the muted crowd. There is no abuse of the players; maybe the most vitriolic have stayed home, though there is head-in-hands mutterings at some of the worst moments. Mainly from me.

At three quarter time, instead of feverishly wondering whether Our Boys could bring the match home with a big last quarter, we stamp feet when the song Sweet Carolinegets played. (After all, it has a chorus which features.. ‘Warm…touching warm…’ and I'm too cold to feel indignation about the gimmick). The Dogs put on a last little spurt of effort, the ball in our forward line in the first few minutes but there is pitifully little reward and a sense of inevitability now about the result.

The stadium is not holding its (icy) breath.

At the other end of the ground, strongly built and bearded Port players (they could also play in an Eagles tribute band) handle the ball cleanly, dragging down mark after mark. The margin blows out, like we knew it would. The Dogs supporters begin straggling out of the ground. Our team did not win. But that was never, after all, why I was there.